When DuckTales Remastered was first announced back at PAX East, the eight-year-old in me was incredibly excited to get a follow-up to one of his favorite games ever (even if it was more a remake than a truly new sequel). But over two decades after the original game was released on the Nintendo Entertainment System, I felt ill-equipped to review this game in its correct context. To help with this problem, I've invited along a special guest reviewer to help me out today: eight-year-old Kyle Orland. Say hi to the nice readers, Kyle.

8-year-old Kyle: Hi to the nice readers, Kyle.

30-year-old Kyle: Jeez, I forgot what a little smart-aleck you were. OK, 8-year-old Kyle, you've played through the new DuckTales: Remastered. How does it hold up to the original that you've been playing obsessively for months?

8-year-old Kyle: First of all, this game looks just like the cartoon! I can't believe how detailed the characters are. It's like I'm actually controlling a drawing. And the backgrounds, it's like they go all the way back in to the screen. I mean, are there even pixels on this big TV you've got? I can't see them!

30-year-old Kyle: Yes, there are still pixels, just a lot more of them than you're used to. The high-definition drawings are pretty detailed, but I found the constantly reused animations got a little old, especially in the cut scenes.

8-year-old Kyle: You mean the parts where the characters stopped and talked? Who cares about the animation; the characters can actually talk in this game. That's incredible! So much better than having to read bits of text like in the NES game. I hate when games make me read. I'm not a big fan of reading in general, in fact.

30-year-old Kyle: I know. You'll get over it. The voice acting was pretty good. They got those "Disney Afternoon" voices down pat. Brought back a lot of pleasant memories. Still, I didn't like the way the game stopped every few minutes in the middle of the levels for yet another slow-paced talking bit. It ruined the pacing a little. Seemed like they were trying too hard to explain every little thing that happened in the game. If I was replaying a level for the second time, I just skipped the cut scenes automatically.

8-year-old Kyle: Are you kidding? The times when the characters were talking were some of my favorite parts! It's like a reward for playing well; you get to watch a real cartoon! I could watch those scenes again and again. And the jokes are pretty funny, just like the TV show. Remember that time when Glomgold said he "stole the treasure fair and square" (Laughs)

30-year-old Kyle: Yeah—I hate to break it to you, but those kinds of jokes get less funny as you get older. Anyway, from what I remember, the game itself was mostly identical to the NES original, right down to the placement of the blocks and hidden items. They added in a few pointless mid-level mini-games and require some treasures that used to be optional, but it's like 90 percent the same game as before, right?

Enlarge/ 30-year-old Kyle: Pogo-jumping with Scrooge's cane is just as fun more than 20 years later.

8-year-old Kyle: Yup, most of it was exactly like I just played on the NES. I could play it with my eyes closed at this point. Except for that first level in the money bin. Why does the game have to tell me how to pogo jump on enemies? I mean, if I couldn't figure it out myself, I could just read the instruction manual, right?

8-year-old Kyle: You mean there's nothing in the box except a cartridge?

30-year-old Kyle: This game isn't on a cartridge. You download it to a hard drive over the—never mind. Long story. In any case, I agree that the tutorial level is pretty much a waste of time. Hey, what did you think of the new bosses? They made them a lot harder this time around, huh?

8-year-old Kyle: Eh, a little bit. You can still just figure out the patterns pretty quickly and beat them without getting hurt. They just take a few more hits than they used to, and they have a few different kinds of attacks. I did like when Dracula Duck got really big and tried to bite you at the end, though. I was like, "Whoa!"

30-year-old Kyle: Yeah, I was like "Whoa!" too, actually! But didn't you find it frustrating when you lost your last life on the boss and had to go through the entire level again? It was like you just wasted the last 15 minutes. Why can't you just continue right before the boss again?

8-year-old Kyle: Um, that's how it's always been. That's what makes it hard and what makes you want to get better. It could be worse. Other games send you back to the beginning of the game. And it's not like you wasted the time. You got more experience, so it'll be easier the next time you play the level.

30-year-old Kyle: I guess I just don't have the same patience for repeating stuff I've already done. I'm a lot busier these days than when I was your age, so I don't like wasting time playing levels over and over again. And I've gotten used to games with more frequent checkpoints or games that let you save whenever you want.

8-year-old Kyle: Hey, at least you get to save your progress at all. I had to leave the NES on for three nights in a row the first time I beat the original game.

30-year-old Kyle: That's right, you did! I guess I shouldn't complain too much. OK, anything else you want to mention about the new game?

8-year-old Kyle: I thought the new versions of the background music with all the instruments were pretty cool, but I wish you could switch in the old ones too. Oh, and swimming in the money bin is so much fun. I dove in like 20 times in a row the other day. It never gets old!

30-year-old Kyle: I miss you sometimes, you know that?

The Good

Timeless level design is largely unchanged

Pogo jumping is as fun as ever

Detailed, expressive hand-drawn sprites

Excellent remixes of classic chiptune tracks

Voice acting from the original cast is top notch

The Bad

You'll want to skip most of the slow-paced talking bits that get in the way of the action (8-year-old Kyle disagrees with this one)

The writing is kind of cheesy (8-year-old Kyle disagrees here, too)

The Ugly

Including a tutorial level encompasses everything that's wrong with modern game design.

Unforgiving checkpoint system is as "Nintendo Hard" as it was decades ago.

Little teatree is rifling through my sock drawers looking for spare change with which to buy this game.

I don't think he knows what a "wallet" is, much less a Steam wallet...

That said, some of the higher-level design choices (keeping "skip cutscene" in the pause menu, tutorial level) are counter-intuitive enough that I hope they might be patched later, but the core of the game is just as fun as I remember (not that I was more than a few months old when the game came out, but I did have an older brother with a big NES library for me to learn from.)

Recommended for all at $10, probably more for the big fans/return players at $15.

I can forgive the opening tutorial level a little bit more for this type of game, even if it is a little ham fisted about it.Not nearly as bad as Zelda SS where I felt half the game was a tutorial.teaching players skills without shoving text down their throat is a complex and not always easy thing to do. Especially when you are basically trying to keep the rest of the game exactly the same.

I want Battletoads to be remade like this, so when my nephews complain that a game is too hard, I could show them what a truly hard game is.

And when they're done with that, bring them the ultimate experience in Nintendo Hard, the original NES |Ninja Gaiden. It starts out innocently enough with a first level so easy that no one has ever failed to go through it on the first try, but by level 6 only the most steel-nerved hardcore players will ever see this one through.

I'm finding it hard to believe you actually talked to your old self. You lost me when 8 year old you from the early 90s knew what a pixel was. For TV we called those "Smudgy color blocks" because that's the scientific name for them

DuckTales holds a special place as when I realized that the TV and the NES were two separate things and that putting a VCR in the middle would let me record the video game. So thanks DuckTales for helping 12yo me realize that technology isn't magic.

I want Battletoads to be remade like this, so when my nephews complain that a game is too hard, I could show them what a truly hard game is.

And when they're done with that, bring them the ultimate experience in Nintendo Hard, the original NES |Ninja Gaiden. It starts out innocently enough with a first level so easy that no one has ever failed to go through it on the first try, but by level 6 only the most steel-nerved hardcore players will ever see this one through.

This game... is like dodging rain.

I actually think Ninja Gaiden was easier between the twoif you want Ninento hard go play Contra or *gasp*SILVER SURFER

I want Battletoads to be remade like this, so when my nephews complain that a game is too hard, I could show them what a truly hard game is.

And when they're done with that, bring them the ultimate experience in Nintendo Hard, the original NES |Ninja Gaiden. It starts out innocently enough with a first level so easy that no one has ever failed to go through it on the first try, but by level 6 only the most steel-nerved hardcore players will ever see this one through.

This game... is like dodging rain.

You say that, but those two or three boxing guys right before the boss of the first level could stunlock you and either seriously maul or kill your ninja if you didn't time your slash just right. The game does get an award for excellent use of cutscenes, especially considering how limited the NES was.

* I found the banter between 8-year-old Kyle and 30-year-old Kyle to be an entertaining way to do this retro review.

* The is going to be on PS3 and PC in the next week. The XB360 version won't be available until Sept 13... yet the XB360 version is the one that has been reviewed... What's up with that? Is it because WayForward Entertainment wants to wait until the end of the Summer of Arcade promotion? Still, why lift the embargo for the XB360 review if the game still has another month+? You'd think they'd send the PS3 or PC version for review.

I want Battletoads to be remade like this, so when my nephews complain that a game is too hard, I could show them what a truly hard game is.

And when they're done with that, bring them the ultimate experience in Nintendo Hard, the original NES |Ninja Gaiden. It starts out innocently enough with a first level so easy that no one has ever failed to go through it on the first try, but by level 6 only the most steel-nerved hardcore players will ever see this one through.

This game... is like dodging rain.

I actually think Ninja Gaiden was easier between the twoif you want Ninento hard go play Contra or *gasp*SILVER SURFER

Contra? Hard? Hardly. I've beaten it several times without losing a single life.In my book, the "Nintendo" hard games were games like Battletoads, Ninja Gaiden, TMNT, and Section Z (a lesser known, side scrolling space shooter). Those were the games that, even after you've beaten them, are still hard to beat. The ones that leave your palms sweaty as you prepare for the final boss battle because, no matter how good you are, there's a good chance you're about to lose and that's it. No check point. No saved game. GAME OVER. Sorry bub. Try again... from the beginning!

Alright, so I've been a good parent, and have been raising my 8-year old daughter on classics. She plays Kings Quest I on an IBM PCjr, she plays Pac-Man and Dig-Dug on an Apple II. (And, of course, she has a Minecraft server.)

Now I'm going to have to dig up a copy of DuckTales for NES (yes, we have an NES, although it isn't plugged in, as most NES games I play I have bought on Wii Shop.) Then I'll compare her playing the original to the new.

I had better hope Nintendo doesn't do this kind of thing with Super Metroid. I'll be unable to resist and that means dropping over $300 on new hardware I currently have no intention of buying.

You're probably safe. Super Metroid was part of the 30 cent virtual console promotion a few months ago so I doubt they are planning a remake any time soon.

yeah, for some reason Metroid has always been the franchise that Nintendo has somehow treated as their own red headed step child.Don't know what it is that makes them somehow seemingly not want to support it.

I want Battletoads to be remade like this, so when my nephews complain that a game is too hard, I could show them what a truly hard game is.

Try playing Battletoads 2 player if you want hard. There is friendly fire, and if either of the players fails a jump you both fail.

The philosophy we eventually came up with was "you must become one toad to survive"

There was also a game-breaking glitch in 2-player mode. During the pizza slicer like racer portion, the second player would not be able to move and the orb would instantly kill him, forcing a restart of the level. Repeat until out of lives.

And another game I missed back in 1989. I'm sure Ducktales was great when it was first released but it was below my age bracket and thus one I would have passed on at the time not having kids yet.

I might have to check it out on PS3 or Steam.

Although, I do have a question. Is the game 'hard' or is it 'punishing'? Repeating a level after dying on a boss fight is starting to approach punishing imo, and I'm just not a big fan of games that use that type of mechanic. Although I would have to say that it depends on the gameplay itself, and length of levels and/or previous checkpoints.

I want Battletoads to be remade like this, so when my nephews complain that a game is too hard, I could show them what a truly hard game is.

And when they're done with that, bring them the ultimate experience in Nintendo Hard, the original NES |Ninja Gaiden. It starts out innocently enough with a first level so easy that no one has ever failed to go through it on the first try, but by level 6 only the most steel-nerved hardcore players will ever see this one through.

This game... is like dodging rain.

I actually think Ninja Gaiden was easier between the twoif you want Ninento hard go play Contra or *gasp*SILVER SURFER

I always assumed Contra was meant to be played with the Contra code. With 30 lives, it was fairly easy to beat the whole game.

The hardest NES games I recall playing that I absolutely could not beat (without an emulator) were Battletoads, Back to the Future, Ninja Gaiden and TMNT.

I remember Back to the Future being very stressful because you had to keep grabbing clocks. I also hated playing BttF 2/3 because if you went back to a previous level your other self would be running around and would kill you if you got close enough. It was all too much for 6 or 7 year old me.

Kyle Orland / Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in Pittsburgh, PA.